More questons from a new crab owner

[Tiggee6645]

We got our crabs at the end of May and after a week of activity they pretty much disappeared underground until about a week ago when at least one of the 2 resurfaced at night. Since then, every night there appears to have some activity - substrate churned up, food eaten. However, other than three brief sightings, they haven't been up during our waking hours. Is there anything we can do to entice them to resurface earlier in the evening? Tank is about 77-79 degrees, humidity is >80%. There is moss and a terra cotta pot to hide under? Or do we just need to be patient?

Also, we're pretty sure that the only crab we've seen is the slightly bigger one. How do we know if the other crab made it? Should we start thinking about finding a friend for the one crab that is up and about?

Thanks!

[CrabbyLover77]

We got our crabs at the end of May and after a week of activity they pretty much disappeared underground until about a week ago when at least one of the 2 resurfaced at night. Since then, every night there appears to have some activity - substrate churned up, food eaten. However, other than three brief sightings, they haven't been up during our waking hours. Is there anything we can do to entice them to resurface earlier in the evening? Tank is about 77-79 degrees, humidity is >80%. There is moss and a terra cotta pot to hide under? Or do we just need to be patient?

Also, we're pretty sure that the only crab we've seen is the slightly bigger one. How do we know if the other crab made it? Should we start thinking about finding a friend for the one crab that is up and about?

Thanks!

I bought a Wyze security camera last year to watch my crabbies at night. I have an older model that I paid about $25 for. When I was switching my 4 crabs over to my 55 gal from their 20 gal, the camera was super helpful. I set it to alert me of any movement. If I was home and I got a notification, I would run to the tank to grab the crabby and move it to the big tank. If you get a camera like this that has night vision, you'd be able to see if just one, or both, crabs were up at night.

Do you have a lot of hiding places? I find the more hiding places I have, the more the crabs will come out during the day. I guess they feel safer if they can retreat to cover from any spot in the tank.

Sent from my Moto G (5) Plus using Tapatalk

[curlysister]

The camera is a great idea to see who is coming up. But even if it's only one of them, don't worry yet. Crabs can stay down for a few months at a time. I wouldn't start to worry until at least 4 months, and even then there likely wouldn't be any reason to try digging around to see if an underground crab made it or not. Welcome to crabbing - they are cute and teach us patience! LOL!

[Tiggee6645]

Yes, I am learning patience from my crabs! Thank you for the suggestions of the camera and more hiding places. We'll look into those.

[DragonsFly]

Hermit crabs are nocturnal (just one of many reasons why they really don't make good "pets"). CrabbyLover's suggestion to provide more hiding places, more foliage, more climbing structures, especially climbing structures that lead to either moss pits or resting places with a lot of screening foliage, can help you to see them more during the day sometimes, but in the end, they are creatures that are active at night, and will spend days to weeks to months underground throughout their lifetimes (Major Tom has been down for 2 years this time), during which time you need to keep conditions good and water and food sources available, and no, it is really NOT a good idea to add more crabs to an established tank in general, but especially not if one may be down molting, because new crabs will often dig down right away, and encountering a molter underground is a great free meal for them!

If you can afford the night-vision camera and enjoy their activities after the fact, that can be a good option. Basically, the real appeal of hermit crabs, in the end, is having your own private zoo exhibit, and working on an ongoing basis to provide the best captive habitat you can for these wild animals. If you enjoy that kind of challenge, and--as you say--you welcome the great lessons in patience that they definitely teach!--then hermit crabs just might be for you.